Holiday Heat: The Men of Starlight Bend

by Ashley Jennifer

  “Which makes you a medical miracle.” She polished off her cocktail and deposited her glass next to his. “Ever consider that Travis didn’t lose out on that twenty in the grand scheme of things? The restaurant’s claim to fame is that your ginormous steak is free if you can eat it there in one sitting. Our Porterhouses cost fifty dollars apiece. So Travis actually saved thirty bucks by challenging you.”

  Nick’s brow furrowed.

  Her eyes sparkled. “And they call you one of Harvard’s finest.”

  “I was twelve!”

  “Some excuse.” She wandered over to the sofa and sank onto a cushion. “Nostalgia’s a curious thing, isn’t it? Sometimes you remember incidences precisely as they played out…and sometimes you have a completely different take on what really happened.”

  “Depending on your mindset,” he mused.

  “Yes.”

  Nick took the glasses back to the wet bar, framed by bookshelves. He scanned the titles, his gaze landing on three Starlight Bend High School yearbooks. Pulling the middle one from its slot, he flipped through the pages highlighting his senior year—Anna’s junior.

  “Damn, I haven’t looked at this since I graduated.”

  “That’s because you left yours with Ruby,” she reminded him.

  Nick’s head popped up and his gaze locked with hers. “What was the point in taking them with me? Those years were part of my past, while I was moving forward. That’s how I had to view it all in order to get through med school. Besides,” he said as he crossed the room and sat next to her. “I didn’t need pictures in a book to make me think of my friends and the life I’d had here—or you. I had a headful of memories. And I already told you about a very specific one that has never faded.”

  “An incredible night of celebrating that was laced with the inescapable fact that you were leaving Starlight Bend the very next morning.”

  Nick sighed. “You were never one to fixate on the negative.”

  “Things have changed a little since you’ve been gone.” She pushed out of her seat and went back to the bar. Poured another brandy and then stood in front of the fire.

  Nick didn’t miss the underlying tension that suddenly filled the room. Just as his overloaded schedule had taken a toll on Jake recently, Nick’s plotted-out future had done the same to Anna.

  He flipped through more pages. Frowned again when he neared the end of the yearbook and stared at the photos of the prom royalty court. There was supposed to be a full page devoted to him and Anna before it, as their king and queen.

  His gaze shifted to the lower portion of the book, where he noted the torn remnants of paper.

  He glanced back at Anna, who was sipping as she watched him.

  Nick asked, “What happened to our photo?”

  “I was out of newspaper to start a fire.”

  Nick snapped the book shut. “You were out of newspaper to start a fire? And you used our prom picture to do it?”

  “Yeah, well… I might have been having a moment.”

  “Huh.” He placed the yearbook on the coffee table. “Interesting.” He went for another drink, too, then returned to the leather couch.

  Anna didn’t say anything further, so Nick ventured, “You were pissed that I went to Harvard.”

  “Not initially. I was totally supportive, remember?”

  “Yes. And it was quite convincing.”

  “I wasn’t lying, Nick,” she said in a steady tone. “I was actually very proud of you for getting into an Ivy League school and I was in awe of all that you’d accomplished before you’d even been accepted.”

  “So what gives?”

  She turned toward the fireplace. Pulled in a long breath.

  Nick did a little mental searching in an attempt to ascertain what might have set her off enough to rip their prom picture from her yearbook and destroy it.

  He said, “I still remember what I wrote.”

  “That just might be the problem.”

  His brow quirked. “That I remember?”

  “No. What you wrote.”

  Nick settled back in his seat. Crossed one long leg over the other. “I told you I was going to come back in ten years and marry you.”

  “And I believed you.”

  Nick took a long pull from the snifter. “So the carriage is a little late in arriving.”

  “There is no carriage, Nick.” She turned back to him. “I realized that right around year six. I mean, I always knew we were on different trajectories—I’d told myself that a thousand times. Accepted it, even. Yet a girl can still dream, right?”

  “Until year six, apparently.”

  “That was when I asked myself why I was holding my breath. Why I was just waiting, waiting, waiting…”

  His jaw clenched briefly. “So what happened?” he asked. “Once you stopped holding your breath?”

  “I went on a date. The first ever since you.”

  “Anna…” His gaze narrowed. “You didn’t date at all for six years after I left?”

  “Who was I going to date, Nick?” she asked, incredulously. “The only guy I’d ever wanted was you.”

  “But then someone new came along?”

  She wrung her hands for a moment. “Not exactly…new.”

  He uncrossed his legs. Sat forward. Placed his drink on the coffee table. “Who?”

  Apprehension flitted across her face before she tentatively admitted, “Cal Halston.”

  Nick’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment. Then flew open. He glared at her. “You have got to be shitting me.”

  “No. Sorry.”

  Nick needed several seconds to process what she’d just said. Came around slower than normal, because she might as well have dropped an anvil on his head, then ordered him to think straight.

  Anna said, “I know he’s the absolute last person—”

  “The absolute last person, Anna.” Nick recovered and added, “Of all the fucking people. Come on! He was my nemesis for years. Rival quarterback from Lakeside High, always baiting me so that I had to shut him down on the field and always, always hitting on you.”

  “Which I never responded to,” she vehemently told him.

  “Until year six!” he erupted.

  Anna opened her mouth to speak. No words came out.

  Nick groaned. “You seriously dated Cal Halston?”

  “He could have gone pro,” she eventually said. “Chose to rodeo instead. Won several championships, then came back to Starlight Bend. I’d see him at Travis’s bar from time to time. We’d have a beer or two. Dance once or twice.”

  Nick shoved a hand through his hair. “I know I had no claim on you at that point but, what? You were looking for some sort of revenge?”

  “No, Nick.” She speared him with an earnest look. “I was lonely. I had just turned twenty-four and I’d had one boyfriend in my entire life. One.”

  “Who was no fucking where in sight.”

  “I’m not blaming you,” she was quick to say. “I’m stating a fact. I was lonely. I was all alone. Building the facilities, immersed in starting a business, trying to make all this happen, because Travis had such high hopes for me—because I had such high hopes for me. Because I knew my mom would be proud of me for stretching my wings like this… But at the end of the day, I was rambling around this huge house on this massive piece of land. Wondering where you were, what you were doing…” She let out a long breath. Licked her lips. Said, “Wondering who you were with.”

  “Angel.” He pinched the corner of his eyes with his finger and thumb.

  “I’m not laying down a guilt trip, Nick. You moved on. I reached a point where I had to as well. We were never going to meet in the middle, you know that. Your life is in Manhattan. Mine is in Starlight Bend. From the time you graduated, it was written in stone that we were destined to be star-crossed lovers. Nothing more.”

  He took exception to that in his heart.

  Yet in his brain, he conceded the point.

  Nick sat back. Anna
joined him on the sofa.

  She curled up next to him and said, “The thing is, I had to try like the dickens to make a relationship work with Cal. To stay in the moment with him, not let my mind wander to you. To focus on being a couple with him, not wallow in guilt that I was with someone other than you. It was incredibly hard. He watched me struggle. And it made him crazed in the end. He was so jealous, he just—” She shook her head. Gnawed her lower lip.

  “He just, what?”

  “He knew I was doing all that I could to get over you. There were times, though, when I’d mentally slip away. When I’d hesitate. When I’d say the wrong thing. And it hacked away at him. He wanted me to be open and honest about my feelings and I kept denying them, because they were too complex to sort out. I really liked him,” she confessed. “But it was difficult to move past you. He put a hell of a lot of effort into understanding and being patient, Nick. He really did. You can only expect so much from someone, though. Until they snap.”

  His gaze held hers as Nick asked, “Snapped how, exactly?”

  “He got drunk one night. Told me he loved me. Said he’d bought me a ring and he wanted to give it to me. But he needed to know first that I could forget all about you. That I could be his and his alone. And those words—the connotation of finality for us—they tore at me, Nick.”

  He swept a hand through her hair, pushing the strands from her temple and cheek.

  She said, “There was a part of me that wanted to agree. To vow to Cal that I could belong solely to him. Yet deep in my soul…I knew it’d be a lie to make that sort of oath. And the worst thing was that I knew he’d had to get drunk to tell me his true feelings. Because he already knew what my answer would be—he just had to ask me and hear the words so that he could be done with it all. Be done with me.”

  Tears sprang up on the rims of her eyes. This time, Nick didn’t whisk them away. He wasn’t sure why, except that maybe he was always so quick to try to quell whatever troubled her. Soothe her. When in actuality, she needed—deserved—to let all the pain out. Once and for all.

  So he sat quietly.

  She told him, “I had to free him up, of course. It would have been selfish to hang onto him any longer. As much as you thought of Cal as a nemesis, plenty of other people worshipped him. Mostly women, naturally. But he was a bit of a rodeo god and I would have only held him back from a great love and a more astounding career if I’d accepted his ring and asked him to stay here on the ranch with me. And, yes, after we broke up, he did go on to win more championships and found himself a pretty little gal who is hopelessly devoted to him.”

  “And you were still alone.”

  Her voice was a mere whisper as she said, “Not at first.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Anna inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. Then told him, “I was pregnant, Nick.”

  Chapter Eight

  Nick didn’t blink. His gaze didn’t waver. Anna wasn’t even sure he’d taken a breath in the last few seconds.

  “Nick?”

  He stared at her. Shocked disbelief flickered in his eyes. But he seemed to fight it. Not willing to give into it, apparently trying to keep a level head.

  She said, “It was definitely a condom mishap, because we were very careful. I’m on the pill now as backup. Not that it’s been necessary…until last night. But that’s another story. Point is, it was one of those anomalies that throw your universe out of whack. I found out after Cal and I split. I tried to tell him, but between his unpredictable cell signals while he was on the circuit, not to mention all the chaos that goes with rodeo-ing, and my med facility emergencies and all the warring inside me about finding just the right moment to spring the news on him, I never did find the right moment to tell him.”

  She let out a small laugh that held no humor.

  “Which ironically—in a horrific way,” she said, “turned out to be a blessing in disguise.”

  “How do you figure?” Nick finally spoke. “A man wants to know this sort of thing, sweetheart.”

  “Depends on the circumstances and the man, Nick. As it turns out…the circumstances weren’t so good.”

  His brow furrowed. “Tell me.”

  “I delivered a preemie.”

  “How premature?”

  “Eight weeks.”

  Nick sucked in a sliver of air. “Shit.”

  “My son’s lungs weren’t fully developed. They had him on a ventilator instantly.”

  “Anna.” Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his lap.

  Pain and grief seized her and tears burned her eyes. “Eventually, they rolled him into my room, though he was hooked up to tubes. And there was just…there was no hope for him, Nick.”

  “Goddamn it,” he all but growled. Nick held her to him and kissed the top of her head. His voice was thick with emotion as he told her, “I’m so sorry, angel.”

  “I didn’t have the baby in order to disrupt Cal’s life. He’d moved on. I had Zander because—”

  “Zander?”

  “Yes,” she choked on a sob. “I had him because I wanted him and I knew I could raise him on my own. And if Cal decided to be a part of his life, we’d figure it out. The bottom line was…I wanted my son.”

  Nick’s embrace tightened as she trembled.

  Anna said, “He was just so tiny and fragile—and there was nothing I could do for him.” She started to cry.

  Nick stroked her hair as she quietly wept.

  “I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “I wish you would have called me, sweetheart.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything, either.”

  “I could have been here with you.”

  She cried even harder.

  Maybe a ghastly tragedy such as this could have brought him back to Starlight Bend, but that wasn’t what Anna had wanted. It would have been as temporary as this visit.

  And, for Nick, the wound she’d unintentionally inflicted by being with Cal and having his baby might have cut deeper because it would have been a fresh one. Whereas telling him ten years after the fact offered a small buffer. Or so she hoped.

  Anna didn’t temper her crying jag, knowing Nick had the broad shoulders for it. As the tears fell and her body quaked, she realized this just might be the cleanse she’d been waiting for all this time. Been in desperate need of, following her losses. Because it was Nick who held her, protected her, made it perfectly acceptable for her to mourn—to come completely undone—instead of being the steady one to provide comfort as she usually did.

  She could never be like this with anyone else.

  Only Nick.

  And despite the insensibility of it all, Anna fell even more love with him.

  ~~*~~

  She also fell asleep in his arms. Had literally cried herself to sleep while he’d held her and whispered soothing words and stroked her back.

  Anna wasn’t sure if he’d nodded off at all during the night, because he was awake when she stirred. She pulled in a lungful of air and let it out slowly. The final expulsion of her pain, she hoped.

  It was quite miraculous what a massive sobfest could do for a person, especially when they’d held in their agony for most of their life. She was drained mentally, but there was a fresh breeze trilling through her body as she inhaled Nick’s masculine scent and reveled in the strength he exuded and the feeling of his fingertips grazing her cheek—and the knowledge that he could withstand any storm with her.

  Her face was burrowed in the crook of his neck and she softly kissed his warm skin.

  He told her, “The sun’s only just coming up, angel. Go back to sleep.”

  “No, I’m better.” She lifted her head and smiled at him. “A lot better.”

  “I’m glad. I just wish—”

  “Shh,” she said before she briefly pressed her lips to his. “Wishes convolute things, Nick. They mess with reality.”

  “Sometimes reality is overrated, sweetheart.”

  She laughed—this time not a
hollow one. And it felt damn good. “This from a man with a brilliant scientific mind.”

  “I’m still just a man,” he contended with conviction in his deep, intimate tone. And in his glowing emerald irises.

  “An incredible one at that.” She kissed him again. Then slipped from his embrace.

  He groaned in protest. “Thought I was incredible. Where’s the fire?”

  Her gaze slid to the hearth. “Currently smoldering, so please do something about that. There’s a chill in the air.” She pulled her robe around her.

  He smirked.

  With another laugh, she explained, “I need to take a shower and get around so I can make breakfast before Jake is up.”

  “I can make breakfast.”

  Her brow jumped. “You cook?”

  “Why so surprised?”

  “Well, I figured you’d have cleaning people, a house manager who shops for you and picks up the dry cleaning and, of course, a personal chef.”

  Nick drily said, “As a matter of fact, I have all of those on-staff.”

  “So what, exactly, do you cook?”

  “Steel-cut oatmeal, remember?”

  “I don’t eat it, so I don’t have any. Sorry.”

  “Eggs?”

  “Got plenty. Let’s see what you can do with them.” She kissed him again, but stepped out of his reach when he made a move for her. “I think Jake got an eyeful last night. Let’s not traumatize the boy.”

  She headed out of the room, but turned back before passing through the entrance to the open kitchen and dining area. She told Nick, “You realize you rescue me in your own way, right? By being so solid. By never wavering.”

  He sat forward, his arms on his jean-clad thighs, his hands clasped and dangling between his parted legs. He took a moment to answer her, piquing her curiosity. Eventually, he said, “That can be a strength…and a weakness.”

  They stared at each other across the room. Anna waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. Nick got to his feet and tended to the fire. She wondered what was on his mind. But knew she couldn’t pry any revelations from him until he was good and ready. So she continued through the house and upstairs to the master suite where she showered and dressed. All the while, considering what Nick might be regretting in the grand scheme of things.